Just as consumers can track a package from a warehouse to their doorstep, California regulators keep tabs on the movement of hazardous waste, even on a short journey. 

Now the Department of Toxic Substances Control is considering whether to lift some of those tracking requirements in situations where companies transport hazardous waste within their own properties and along some public roads. 

The University of California system and large corporations say this change in what’s called the manifest rule would make hazardous waste disposal processes safer and more efficient. It could benefit car manufacturer Tesla, giant agribusiness in the San Joaquin Valley or industrial chemical manufacturers in the Los Angeles Basin. 

But environmental advocates say state regulators have no good reason to weaken California’s regulations, which are more stringent than federal rules. They fear the department’s proposal signals regulators’ intent to weaken regulations as a strategy to manage some of the state’s growing waste problem. 

“Certainly you don’t have to assume that everybody’s a bad actor, but you probably also shouldn’t assume that nobody’s a bad actor,” said Angela Johnson Meszaros an attorney for the environmental group Earthjustice.

To track hazardous waste, businesses make detailed reports, including what toxic materials are in what containers, where the waste is coming from and where it’s going. This manifest protects generators of hazardous waste, helping them prove that they followed regulations. If there’s an accident on the road, the records help fire departments and other responders keep the public safe. 

According to the Department of Toxic Substances Control, the rule change would apply to about 235 hazardous waste producers. That includes the University of California system, which produces waste at every campus, in hospitals, in maintenance operations, and in research. 

At UCLA, if researchers have slides with chemicals on them, or vials that were used in experiments, that toxic waste is stored in the labs until it can be collected.

What happens next is expensive and inefficient, said Ken Smith, who directs environmental health and safety systemwide for the University of California. 

Every time waste moves from collection sites to disposal sites off campus, someone has to write a manifest. Large trucks come to labs to pick up the hazardous trash, no matter how small the load. 

“Imagine if you had to send a big dump truck just to pick up your individual waste container from your kitchen or bathroom. They’re going to charge you a trip every time,” Smith said.

Since 1997, California’s manifest rule has demanded more information from more waste generators than the federal system. That’s when a federal rule change exempted other waste generators including the military from having to make detailed reports when waste is transported onsite.  

In announcing a proposal to adopt federal exemptions for waste that travels within a businesses’ property, state regulators wrote that the change would “increase overall public and environmental safety” because with fewer records to make, large, registered-transporter trucks like those for the UC system could collect waste at fewer central locations. 

“California has the most protective, rigorous requirements for hazardous waste management in the nation,” said department spokesperson Alysa Pakkidis, in an email. “The manifest exemption continues our state’s high standards and does not alter transporters’ obligations.” 

If the Department of Toxic Substances Control changes the manifest rule, it’s not just the UC system that benefits: according to regulators’ announcement, “miscellaneous chemical businesses,” military and other government businesses would qualify for the proposed exemption. 

But the department is sharing little information about exactly which facilities will stop reporting some information or how many miles hazardous waste may travel without being tracked. 

At the only public hearing on the rule change so far, regulators gave no presentation. Pakkidis said the department does not have a list of qualifying facilities and hazardous waste generators have no obligation to notify the department if they take advantage of the new rule. 

“DTSC regularly inspects hazardous waste transporters and generator facilities to ensure they follow all the rules, including manifesting when required,” she said. 

Without details, community advocates and skeptics for the rule say they’re left to speculate. 

Smith, the UC official, said chemical waste from a research lab at UCLA may travel miles along the perimeter of campus where homes and schools are located. If the rule applies at large agricultural farms too, said Johnson Meszaros, the Earthjustice attorney, hazardous waste might be transported multiple miles from one side of property to the other. 

“Just because it’s not going far doesn’t mean that it’s not vulnerable to an accident,” Johnson Meszaros said.  

Tesla and Pacific Gas & Electric Company say the exemption would benefit them.  

In a letter to state regulators, Tesla wrote that the proposal to lessen manifest requirements “is critical to provide operational flexibility when handling hazardous waste.” 

A spokesperson for PG&E said that the change would allow the utility to minimize truck traffic and centralize waste storage areas ”oftentimes to a location that is better suited for the surrounding community.” 

“This exemption is really setting everybody up for a lot of confusion and therefore a lot of noncompliance,” said Rebecca Overmyer-Velázquez, an advocate with the Clean Air Coalition for North Whittier and Avocado Heights, at the August public hearing. “We’re entering into this period of just confusion and lawlessness, where anyone can decide that they’re not going to have to manifest the waste that they’re transporting.”

Members of her coalition have raised questions about whether changing the manifest rule would change operations at Ecobat, the only lead-acid battery recycling facility in California. Regulators have been considering an update to Ecobat’s permit, which was expected in July this year after some delays. 

A spokesman for Ecobat says the rule does not apply at its City of Industry facility. The DTSC has not clarified whether Ecobat is one of the 235 facilities that would benefit from a changed manifest rule. 

The Department of Toxic Substances Control characterizes the manifest proposal as a “clarification.” But advocates fear it’s a harbinger of weakening hazardous waste laws, one potential strategy to deal with California’s toxic trash problem. 

In the last 25 years, the amount of hazardous waste generated in the state has decreased by more than 40%, even though the number of hazardous waste generators has doubled, according to the department. But the waste stream is changing, and the state lacks the capacity to handle certain kinds of waste; specifically, lithium-ion batteries that are critical to clean energy plans.  

A 2021 state law, recognizing that problem and its complexity, directed the Department of Toxic Substances Control to reform how it manages hazardous waste.  

Just two landfills can accept the state’s most toxic trash; a CalMatters investigation in 2023 found that, even two years ago, nearly half of it is driven to states that have weaker environmental protections. DTSC estimates the landfills will reach capacity by 2039. 

In March, DTSC recommended weakening hazardous waste disposal rules for contaminated soil, one of the state’s largest streams of toxic waste. The department removed the recommendation after the Board of Environmental Safety – recently created to oversee the department – raised concerns. 

The latest draft of the state’s hazardous waste plan has three goals: to reduce the amount of waste that is burned or goes to landfills, to manage waste in a way that protects peoples’ health and the environment, and to use data “from cradle to grave” to help manage the state’s hazardous waste sustainably. 

Johnson Meszaros said she thinks these recommendations leave room for weakening regulations, including those that protect people from exposure to contaminated soils. 

DTSC, for instance, is planning to review other federal exemptions that the state could adopt and evaluate how harmful waste is, when it’s considered hazardous under California law but not federally. 

“There’s nothing in this revised version that suggests that DTSC has stepped away from their deregulatory approach, and in fact, they continue to speak directly to a desire to do that,” said Johnson Meszaros.